A report released in the U.K. on October 7, conducted by a Parliamentary Commission and chaired by historian Lord Andrew Roberts, unveils the horrors of a devastating attack on Israel led by Hamas. Among the victims named in the report is a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor and a newborn baby who tragically lost their lives just hours after birth.
The comprehensive 318-page report meticulously documents the deaths of 1,182 individuals during a 48-hour period, shedding light on the extreme brutality and atrocities committed against civilians. The attack was not only aimed at killing but also inducing terror through looting and dehumanization, as detailed in the report.
Instances of group rapes of women and girls, some of whom were brutally murdered, as well as sexual violence against corpses are highlighted in the report. Furthermore, the report emphasizes the deliberate targeting of children, with heartbreaking accounts of infants being shot in strollers or even burned alive in the attack. The thorough investigation provides crucial evidence to bring justice to the victims and condemn the heinous acts perpetrated during this tragic event.
Roberts said the attack was “not just spontaneous — it was a premeditated bloodlust.” He compared it to historical atrocities like the Rape of Nanjing in 1937. “Once Hamas got into a bloodlust, they were going out of their way to murder and kill absolutely anybody who came anywhere near them,” he said.
Despite the horrors, Roberts said the report also includes examples of heroism. For example, of Netta Epstein — a young man who “threw himself on a grenade to save his fiancée’s life” — Roberts said such acts “stand up with the great acts of heroism of any age.”
Released hostages Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari, wearing green, are greeted by Israeli soldiers following their arrival in Israel after being held in Gaza since the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack, following their release as part of a hostage-prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel, in southern Israel, in a screen grab from a handout video obtained by Reuters on Jan. 19, 2025. ( Israel Defense Forces/Handout via Reuters)
“We have the names in it of everybody who was killed … mostly with the circumstances of their deaths as well,” Roberts added: “Speaking as a historian, there are moments when one thinks of 9/11, or Pearl Harbor, various other attacks like this. They become part of history very quickly, but the actual individuals involved tend to get forgotten.”
Asked what role democracies should play in countering denialism, Roberts answered, “The first is properly to memorialize the victims,” he said. “The second … is to see this appalling act of barbarism for what it is, which is a complete denial of democracy, a blow struck deliberately against civilization, and … the most appalling act of racism.”
Israeli soldiers remove the bodies of civilians, who were killed days earlier in an attack by Palestinian terrorists on this kibbutz near the border with Gaza, on October 10, 2023, in Kfar Aza, Israel. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)
“Britain should be doing everything in its power to help Israel protect itself forever against such another attack,” Roberts clarified that he was expressing a personal view: “At the moment, it seems [the British government] is not doing that at all.”
In the report’s conclusion, Roberts and his colleagues wrote: “Our report will hopefully permit people to see such denials and justifications for what they really are: a perversion of and rejection of human decency. We owe it to the victims and their grieving families to set down the ghastly unvarnished truth about the sheer barbarism that Hamas and its terrorist allies unleashed on October 7, 2023.”
